I was reading more closely through the new ships in TRO3057R, as well as the ones presented in TRO3067, which constitutes the vast majority of the known Warships (Comstar's Faslane Spaceyard Ship is the only exception that springs to mind, and is not relevant to this discussion). It seems to me from a strictly naval point of view, there are some major discrepancies regarding the classifications of various vessels.

For the purposes of brevity, I'll only include commentary on the heavy crusier or larger vessels. It is interesting to note that the Sovietskii Soyuz, listed as a heavy cruiser, is in fact what traditional naval doctrine would call a Battlecruiser, in that it has easily enough firepower to destroy itself twice over in a single volley, and indeed, using only its main battery (A trio of Naval Autocannon Bays capable of delivering 60 damage each). The Cameron class and the Black Lion class are the only designated Battlecruisers of the Star League era. The former cannot inflict single-turn kills on its sisters, although the later can, albeit barely.

The more stunning thing to me was comparing the warships of the 3050's to their earlier breathen. The most striking item was the Mjolnir class Yggdrasil, the Lyran's major warship of the FedCom Civil War. The Mjolnir class was designated a Battlecruiser, but its full broadside brought some 400 point of damage to bear on each side. The class also had enough armor to stop such a barrage (nearly 500 armor on each facing). However, for those of you not keeping score, this means a Mjolnir could render a McKenna noncombatant with a single broadside and less than a 70% hit rate. The McKenna, on the other hand, would need at least two volleys of perfect accuracy to penetrate any single armor facing on the Mjolnir.

Class drawing of the McKenna

The Mjolnir was constructed to provide a credible opponent for the Federated Sun's Avalon class cruiser. The Avalon, when examined, is indeed much heavier than the Fox class corvettes that fill out the bulk of the FC's navy, however, it is still a cruiser at best, and cannot hope to stand in the face of the monolithic Mjolnir's weapons systems. Given the Mjolnir's extensive armoring, its enormous payload, and its sheer tonnage (some 1.25 Million tonnes), I cannot understand how the vessel was classified a Battlecruiser when it is more clearly a Battleship than even the Nightlord or the McKenna.

Of course, the Mjolnir is not without its weaknesses. Its optimum weapons range is at Medium Range, while its larger ancestors could engage with their main batteries at extreme range. However, most weapons fire will miss at long and extreme ranges, and the Mjolnir, which can pull two and a half G's during combat operations, will easily set the range with any warship large enough to provide a credible threat. Given these observations, we can draw some interesting conclusions about the Lyran naval doctrine during the FedCom Civil War. For instance, the Yggdrasil is obviously an attack vessel, and yet it was deployed in an exclusively defensive role (the defense at Tharkad). Given multiple batteries capable of destroying dropships or even small warships in a single round, the restricted use of this ship was inexcusable. There is no reason a Mjolnir should not be able to engage and destroy any other warship existing in the Inner Sphere or Clan Space in 3067.